The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

Valentina Telychenko, lawyer representing the widow of murdered journalist Georgy Gongadze stated at a press conference on Wednesday that the management of the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv have classified as “For Official Use Only” technical information regarding the computerized distribution of political cases between judges.

“Several deputies and lawyers have formally approached the Pechersky District Court management asking about the protocols for the computer selection in this court. This information has been assigned the status of “For Official Use Only”.

In her view, this casts doubts on the lawfulness of the distribution of high-profile criminal cases between judges of the Pechersky District Court.

“Since last year we have had several significant changes in criminal procedure law, for example, this same computerized selection of judges. There were a lot of stories about what the computer “sniffed out” when it selected one and the same judge for several political cases. I mean the selection of Judge Vovk who has long specialized in civil cases “.

Ms Telychenko find the circumstances dubious where judges without experience or who did not previously specialize in criminal law are selected to examine political cases.